For those unwilling to shell out thousands but still keen to get their literary hit on a train, next month the Ted Hughes poetry festival is hosting a "poetry train" with John Siddique and Amanda Dalton: hie thee to the 11:02 from Leeds to Mytholmroyd on October 26. Siddique is confident about his reception: "I've done a reading on a tram in Blackpool before. As long as people know it's a poet giving a reading, it's fine," he tells the Yorkshire Post. "If it's just guerrilla poetry on public transport, it's another thing entirely. It becomes a bit like a busker or a beggar on the Tube," he adds. Let's hope he's given a name badge.

But all this got us to thinking: which author would you least like to encounter on a journey? Jack Kerouac on a sales trip around Rotherham? Ann Widdecombe on a package jaunt to Ibiza? Or maybe Dan Brown on a walking pilgrimage to Santiago de' Compostella?